Keep at it, carriers

T-1, T-3 and frame relay data network service providers need to work a little harder to make the Honor Roll.

By Susan Ellerin
Network World, 11/09/98

Carriers may provide adequate service and support, but none go the extra mile for their data network services customers. That's the gist of Part 2 of the Network World Service and Support Survey, co-sponsored by Deloitte Consulting.
Deloitte Consulting, the sponsor of this year's Service and Support Survey series, is one of the world's leading management consulting firms. Its networking practice focuses on applying telecommunications solutions and expertise that meet today's business challenges.
The firm has networking centers of expertise in 15 offices around the world.

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The first installment, published on June 15, focused on readers' satisfaction with their internetwork hardware, server and groupware vendors. We gave special Network World Honor Roll recognition to vendors that earned an average satisfaction grade of at least 85 for 19 service and support attributes. On the whole, even the top performing vendors had plenty of room for improvement.

Curious to see how carriers would fare, we conducted a second survey to gauge readers' satisfaction with data services, including T-1, T-3 and frame relay. As in the first study, grades range from a possible low of 50 (not at all satisfied) to a high of 100 (extremely satisfied). And just as before, carriers needed average grades of 85 or higher to make our Honor Roll. On our grading scale, 90 or greater counted as an A; 80 to 89 a B; 70 to 79 a C, 60 to 69 a D; and anything below 60 warranted an F.

No long-distance carrier or regional Bell operating company scored consistently high enough to earn a spot on the Network World Honor Roll, although AT&T, BellSouth and Sprint came close. On the other hand, no company was flunked for particularly abysmal service, either.

Overall ratings of T-1 and T-3 services range from AT&T and Sprint's near-Honor-Roll scores of 84 each down to GTE's and US WEST's fair-to-middling averages of 76 each.

Frame relay scores span a slightly narrower range - from the solid B grades earned by AT&T, MCI and Sprint down to Bell Atlantic's mediocre average of 77.

We also asked about user experiences with ATM services, but the number of ATM users was not statistically high enough such that we could report those results separately. However, responses regarding ATM services are included in the top-line grades shown on page 51.

Reputations hinge on reliability

Carrier service and support is generally regarded as good, but rarely do readers call it spectacular. And less-than-superb service threatens to impact a corporate customer's bottom line, potentially lowering productivity, undermining employee morale and putting the network in a state of siege.

It isn't enough to provide a reliable data network at a reasonable cost. To be viewed as superior, carriers need to stand behind their work, guarantee performance and quickly remedy problems when service isn't up to par. Although product reliability is crucial to customer satisfaction, it's service that distinguishes vendors and inspires loyalty.

To measure customer satisfaction, we asked all survey respondents to grade each carrier they use on four key areas: product reliability, repair service, technical support, and cost of service and support. In addition, we asked users to give their impressions of each carrier's "overall service and support" without defining what specifically we meant by this formulation (see graphic, above).

Almost without exception, product reliability was the single biggest determinant of customer satisfaction. Data network services users tended

to judge most carriers' repair services and tech-nical support efforts similarly, but those attributes scored significantly lower than product reliability.

Disparately low ratings are typically related to cost. For example, the carriers with the best overall grades for data network services - AT&T and BellSouth - earned the lowest of their five main ratings for cost of service and support.

A good attitude goes far

To score high in satisfaction, carriers would do well to pay close attention to the folks

who answer customer calls for help. When users call a carrier's technical support department, they want to speak with someone who is pleasant, knowledgeable and familiar with their companies.

The T-1/T-3 and frame relay service front-runners all earned high ratings for exceptionally good repair service and technical support.

But not one of the top four carriers in either data network service category achieved its posi-tion without garnering relatively high ratings for two or more attributes of their support representatives.

The primary results

Many readers have used data network services from Ameritech, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, GTE, MCI, SBC Communications, Sprint, US WEST and WorldCom. (The survey was conducted prior to the MCI WorldCom merger.)

However, each carrier has a substantially smaller number of primary users - that is, readers who rely predominately on a particular carrier's T-1, T-3 or frame relay services.

These are customers we'd expect to have the experience necessary to reliably evaluate a variety of more specific service and support attributes.

To develop a more in-depth picture of how the major data network service providers stack up, we asked users to grade their primary carriers on many distinct attributes, including the core factors previously discussed.

First, we asked about the most basic component - the reliability of the services themselves. Then we examined various other characteristics, including qualities of the customer service representatives, basic repairs, service and support, and problem handling. Finally, we combined those individual ratings to the get the average satisfaction grades.

Overall, across categories, readers tend to be most satisfied with service reliability and far less satisfied with the way carriers handle specific problems. Satisfaction is lowest with the more recently developed Web support avenues.

However, certain key individual characteristics highlighted in the report cards were closely tied to overall satisfaction with carriers.

T-1/T-3 leaders

With their matching scores of 84, AT&T and Sprint led the way in T-1 and T-3 mean satisfaction grades, but BellSouth followed closely with an average grade of 82, outpacing US WEST and GTE, with their scores of 76. (SBC earned the top mark of 85, but this was based on such a small sample of primary users that the results aren't statistically significant. Similarly, WorldCom garnered the lowest mean grade with a 74, but the sample size wasn't big enough to interpret with confidence.)

While none of these marks is high enough to earn any carrier a place on the Honor Roll, it's clear that improvements in only a few areas would have placed several companies on the list. AT&T and BellSouth, for example, could substantially boost satisfaction simply by reducing the time it takes them to respond to problems.

Interestingly, respondents rated product reliability at or near Honor Roll level for every carrier except GTE. However, other areas of relative strength and weakness varied considerably from vendor to vendor.

For example, BellSouth scored relatively poorly in its follow-up activities and performance reports. Moreover, low-performing Ameritech won one of the highest marks for product line integration.

Sprint could have achieved Honor Roll status by making modest across-the-board improvements.

Virtually all of the T-1 and T-3 service providers could probably make great strides by paying more attention to areas in which no carrier currently excels. For example, Web technical support is uniformly among the lowest rated support areas. Similarly, performance reports and guarantees, as well as follow-ups to assure that problems have been solved satisfactorily, are areas in which almost no vendor earned more than a C rating.

Frame relay leaders

Respondents who use frame relay services, while significantly fewer in number than those with T-1 or T-3 lines, are most satisfied with AT&T, whose mean grade of 83 tops the roster. BellSouth and MCI follow close behind with mean grades of 82, while Sprint notched a mean of 80.

All of the other frame relay suppliers achieved average scores ranging from 77 to 79.

It may be noteworthy that primary users are more satisfied with the service and support of both US WEST's and MCI's frame relay services than with those carriers' support of T-1 and T-3 lines.

Sprint topped the list when it came to product reliability, earning a score of 89. (BellSouth also received an 89, but considering how few responses we received, the score is not significant.) Interestingly, Sprint's frame relay products garnered higher grades for reliability and repair service than its T-1 and T-3 service, although the company's frame relay service earned a lower average satisfaction rating.

AT&T's representatives provide good phone service, as revealed by the carrier's rating of 84 for telephone technical support and 86 for its representatives' competency and attitude.

The carriers' weak spots for frame relay were in general the same as they were for T-1 and T-3 service: Web support, follow-up, and performance guarantees. That said, readers clearly would welcome improvements to other areas as well.

Moreover, because the cost of service and support is a significant predictor of overall satisfaction ratings, vendors would be wise to focus their efforts on competitive pricing strategies.

Satisfaction at any cost

For carriers to even approach the level of service and support that would earn them a position on the Network World Honor Roll, readers demand excellence in three critical areas:

Solid track record for product reliability.
Exceptional support channels and fast repairs.
Positive, top-notch representatives who know their products.

These are necessary - but not sufficient - criteria for the kind of genuine customer-centered service and support that creates satisfied users. And network managers are basing their expectations on far more than the behavior of carriers alone.

Just as getting a man to the moon decades ago raised the bar on commuters' expectations of crosstown transportation, the quality of service associated with ordinary business and consumer products will dramatically impact perceptions of data network service providers.

Now that it's the norm to be able to instantaneously trace a package you've sent or to drive a new car 15,000 miles without it needing a tune-up, there will be increasing pressure to raise the bar on service and support in network products across the board.